Hard to believe, isn't it? In a $12t economy, what's the best way to rip off a trillion or so, over a few years? (a)defense contract kickbacks, (b)defense deals with Saudis, with Saudi kickbacks, (c)hundreds or thousands of unaudited DOD vendors selling overpriced, or non-existant stuff, (d)all of the above and other things too wonderfully diverse to mention.
That's what happens with your tax dollars being unaccounted for by a government that has you and most of us in this country hypnotized like unbelieving rats in a maze. "Accounting irregularities" means one thing - a giant sucking sound into to some "undisclosed location", as they say.
We shell out the cash, trust our leaders, and hope for the best, without bothering to look into who or what is really happening on a glactic scale.
This is from the DOD Inspector General, an underfunded office that's supposed to audit these things:
"In FY 2000, $1.1 trillion out of a total of $4.4 trillion of accounting entries reviewed by the DOD Inspector General could not be supported "by reliable explanatory information and audit trails." In other words, 25% of taxpayer dollars spent by the Pentagon are potentially being wasted, stolen or misspent"
fpif.org
The recommendation of the private org is to stop the insanity, hold off on hundreds of billions of dollars in Department of Defense (DOD) spending increases at a time when serious financial accountability and oversight failures plague the Pentagon.
But, "there's a war on!" say the Biggest Spenders on the planet... Regardless of the number of troops, the need, or detail, or applicability, it's aly-aly-alls-in-free for defense spenders, whether it adds to our security or not.
Rumsfeld is, fortunately, a big promoter of SecOps, which are the most effective, and cheapest forces for anti-terrorism.
The problem is, opportunists of all stripes see the opportunity to cash in, particularly the incompetent and criminal elements.
For the little guys, we have this:http://www.dodig.osd.mil/DCIS/prsjan02.htm
For the Billion-Dollar thieves, we have this:
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